Earth Mirror

Description

An "earth mirror" is a magical device. Found in German occult literature, it is a clod of earth encased between layers of glass. Gazing into the earth mirror is said to reveal the location of hidden treasures. Magical visions and the revelation of hidden landscape mysteries are two significant features of Earth Mirror, the new album from Layla and Phil Legard, aka Hawthonn, their second for Ba Da Bing. Somewhere between lunar music and ethereal pop, the songs on Earth Mirror reflect the duo's transition from a studio project to a live band following their 2018 album Red Goddess (Of This Men Shall Know Nothing). The themes of the latter's songs mirrored the Legards' experiences, both magical and mundane, as the world careened full-tilt into the pandemic.On Earth Mirror, Layla's celestial voice accompanies a sonic palette including field recordings of cracking ice, uncanny hymns sung in disused medieval chapels, spectral horse whinnies, a rumbling organ, crystalline electric piano, electronic textures, and a modulated jaw harp. No guitars appear on this album. Nor do conventional musical structures: compositions developed organically from dreams ("Dream Cairn"), experiments in inducing magical visions ("Odo Galse," "Vehiel"), ruminations on lunar beings ("Crowned Light," "Circles Of Light"), and ecological anxiety ("Cat's Cradle"). Their literary influences include the English sorcerer Andrew Chumbley, the nihilistic philosopher Emil Cioran, the Enochian language of John Dee and Edward Kelly, and even Kurt Vonnegut. As true practitioners of niche occultism and sonic manipulation, Hawthonn could have easily been an impenetrable project. However, under the Legards' careful stewardship, Earth Mirror is intimate and immediate, minimalist and deftly atmospheric.